By Basics Editorial Committee “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” – Assata Shakur On Saturday March 26th, over a thousand people gathered for #BlackOut Against Police Brutality to demand justice for Andrew Loku and Alex Wettlaufer …
By Liam Fox On December 9th, taxi drivers from across Toronto staged a series of protests against the rival company Uber. Protesters shut down four high traffic areas before finishing with a demonstration at City Hall, calling upon the mayor to ‘bring justice’ to drivers by stopping Uber from operating illegally. These disruptions reverberated throughout …
By: Steve da Silva & Harshita Singh Over the last year in Toronto, we’ve seen disbelief and anger swell amongst people as they’ve learned that the police in this city have “carded” some 1.2 million people between 2008-2013, with young black men being the most targeted group. What has shocked people has been both the …
By: Michael Romandel In Toronto, one of the main ways that working class people find work when they find themselves out of a job and need to pay bills is through various temporary agencies. These agencies play the role of middlemen between corporations and workers. Corporations use them for a number of reasons, though they all add …
by Liam Fox ¡Presente! The Young Lords in New York was on display at The Bronx, El Museo del Barrio and Loisaida museums in New York this fall. The exhibit displayed the immense body of art, culture, and politics that the Young Lords produced over the years, a sort of shrine to the radical love …
by Harshita Singh In 2014, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation issued its annual Performance Report, a document which measures whether TCHC reached its own targets in providing repairs and “sustainable living” conditions for tenants. Last year’s report included a section for Resident Satisfaction. This new section meant to examine whether there was an “increase …
by Harshita Singh “Two people have been killed since I moved in here. Of course I feel unsafe. I feel more safe in the street than in my home.” This is how Maryam*, a woman in her early twenties and a three-year resident of 3171 Eglinton Avenue—one of the TCHC high-rises at the intersection …
by Nathaniel Jote, Shafiqullah Aziz, Steve da Silva Concerned residents and community members gathered at a vigil on Christmas eve for Jermaine Carby, a Brampton man who was shot and killed by Peel Regional Police three months earlier. The gathering rallied about 50 members at the location of Carby’s murder, near Queen and Kennedy, where …
by Michael Romandel On October 29, 2014, Sportchek in a partnership with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (the Raptors owners) launched an advertising and publicity campaign called #MyNorth asking Torontonians to share stories about local basketball culture in the various Toronto ‘hoods. The campaign builds off of Drake’s re-branding of the Toronto Raptors earlier this …
Provincial Judge upholds constitutionality of bylaw that criminalizes the poor. By: Aiyanas Ormond “Don’t kick us when we’re down,” said Susan Aleck, standing in front of the provincial courthouse in Vancouver. “Let us get up and make ourselves better. Give us some space.” Aleck is one of four members of the Vancouver Area Network of …
